Doug Baldwin, Earl Thomas Press Conference Quotes - Jan. 7, 2014

Wide receiver Nate Washington #85 of the Tennessee Titans rushes against free safety Earl Thomas #29 of the Seattle Seahawks at CenturyLink Field on October 13, 2013 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images)

FS Earl Thomas

(On how much of a different team do you expect to see from New Orleans than what he’s seen five weeks ago…) “It’s about us. That’s what we’re taking in this whole time, it’s about us. We’re just enjoying this moment. I’m just lost in it, I’m one with it. It just feels good, it’s a great feeling, and we’re just excited for the chance. Whatever happens it just happens.”

(On Drew Brees…) “I just want to earn my role, that’s it. be the best free safety I could be. It’s just natural, it comes from a good place, from my heart and everybody feels that. That’s what I bring best to this team, just being me, being explosive, and being in tune into the game. When I catch that rhythm it’s fun to watch. That’s all there is to it, it’s just a rhythm.”

(On Drew Brees not testing him down field…) “It’s the playoffs. I’m very excited for it. This is where I get to show what I’m all about. If they don’t throw it my way, they don’t throw it my way, I’ll just encourage my teammates, but they’re going to throw it. They don’t have anything to lose, and we don’t have anything to lose. That’s what is great about the playoffs.”

(On what did they do so well that prevented Drew Brees from taking shots down the field the first game they played…) “I think we played as one. I think everybody was on the same page. We paid attention to the little details, we paid attention to the formations and all of the window drifts that they tried to do to us. it was very smooth, it was very fluent, and it was clear out there.”

(On containing Jimmy Graham…) “We just need to be us. we just need to go out there and play relentless football, everybody to the ball, have fun, celebrate, and we we’re playing good ball like that, we’re going to do what we want to do. We just need to hold up to our end of the bargain. That’s all we can do.”

(On what does having a good pass rush do for a secondary…) “It makes my job a lot easier. Sometimes I take three or four backpedals and there’s a sack, or he’s running for his life. It makes my reads easier and I can be more aggressive. All that works hand and hand, that’s why we’re all tied on a string, and these guys have been great this season. They need a little bit more respect, but that’s just how the league is. I love these guys and they make my job a lot easier.’

(On what challenges does Darren Sproles bring…) “He’s explosive. We know they’re going to try to get him the ball in space so we just have to know where he is. The good thing about us and the way we prepare is we know what they want to do. We know what type of formations that they want to throw at us, and we’re going to take care of it. It’s fine, I’m very confident in our defense.”

(On not having a bye during wildcard weekend…) “Me as a competitor I just wanted to keep playing, keep that rhythm going and just keep playing ball., but the bye does help you in getting back right. Everybody is getting back healthy so you just have to take a positive look at everything, but I definitely would want to just keep playing.”

(On if he expects anything different from the Saints…) “Maybe a little bit more of a balanced attack, but besides that they are who they are offensively. Same thing last time, same thing this time.”

(On the Saints painting the Seahawks logo on the practice field to recreate the environment and if there is any way you can recreate the environment at CenturyLink…) “No. That’s just a simple answer. Everybody knows, and also even when you have your scout team they’re not going to give you the same looks that we’re going to give you, and vice versa.”

WR Doug Baldwin

(On the number 6 seed being 5-2 in the past few years when they come and play the number 1 seed…) “Complacency with the number one seed. You get a bye week and you get complacent, you’re not on your P’s and Q’s, and not on the details going into the game. The sixth seed they’re hungrier, they just came off of a game, they’ve refined their tools, refined their focus so they’re probably more focus usually, and that’s how I see it going. I think that we’ve done a great job trying to stay focused this bye week. Focusing on ourselves so that we’re ready for this week and preparing for this game.”

(On how did they stay focus during the bye week…) “Staying in the moment pretty much that’s what it is. You have to stay focus on the task at hand. Obviously getting the bye week it allows us to recover so our bodies get healthy and then we get more time to watch film, break down things, learn from our mistakes from the previous games of playing against the Saints. Just staying in the moment, keeping it on our mind, keeping it relevant, but at the same time taking advantage of the time off.”

(On what mistakes did they make the first game against the Saints…) “Well to not give it away, basically we had lots of opportunities to score points that we didn’t take advantage of. We left a lot plays out on the field, especially in the running game, and we need to take more advantage of that so that we can dominate the time of possession and dictate the game how we want to do it. Dictate the pace of the game. Definitely the running game for sure.”

(On how do you keep the result of the last Saints game out of your mind…) “It goes against human nature, but at the same time I think that we’ve been in this position so many times in our lives just being in football in general that you eliminate that thought anyway. You’re going into it and it’s a completely different ball game, we’re in a playoff atmosphere, we’re playing against a very highly talented opponent, we know about Drew Brees, and Sean Payton is a great coach. So we’re not going to this for granted because we know how talented those guys are on the other side of the ball.”

(On how do you look at film in this game with their secondary changing a bit…) “That’s a good question. It’s difficult to break them down because I know number 38 hasn’t had many snaps so it’s kind of difficult to break him down, but the amount of snaps that he did have in that game, particularly against the eagles, we’re watching that meticulously taking every detail we can away from that. It’s very difficult, but we have to take what we can from it.”

(On what did they do to keep Philadelphia contained…) “No they just executed well, you have to give credit to them. They came out with a tenacity that got the Eagles out of their element. I mean I don’t know the Eagles playbook, but it didn’t seem like they were executing as well as they’ve shown in the past, but you have to give credit to the saints, they came out with a good game plan.”

(On what did they learn as a team in the playoffs last year…) “That it’s different than the regular season for sure. Not so much, it’s just the energy is ramped up a little bit more. The field is still the same size, there is no different in size, but the atmosphere; the players just get up more for it. The energy is hard to explain. That’s what we learned from it and that’s what we took from it. When we first got there last year a lot of the guys we didn’t know what to expect. We’re just young wanting to go out there, have fun and do our best, but now we kind of expect the atmosphere we know what we’re going into, and we know it’s going to be amped up so we’re going to be just as amped up to repeat it.”